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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (21 May) . . Page.. 1507 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

Mr Berry came into this place and told us, under questioning, that he closed some beds. His thinking, once again, was that the fewer beds that remained open the less money he had to spend to service those beds. He thought, "What do we do? We will double the waiting list. We will close some beds". But he spent more money anyway. That is what Mr Berry did, not once, not twice, not three times; he struck the quadrella. He did it time and time again. Is it any wonder that people like ex-Senator Graham Richardson describe this mob opposite as a place where Castro is still spoken of in heroic terms and call them the loony Left? They have no idea at all as to how to make anything run. Mr Berry would also have known, had he looked into the mirror, that the ACT was spending on Health 30 per cent more than the national average. Under Mr Berry's administration, notwithstanding the fact that he had closed beds and doubled the waiting list, we were still spending 30 per cent more. Do you think that Labor tried to do anything about that? Of course they did not.

What happens under the Liberal administration? Mrs Carnell overspends on her health budget. She realises that she overspends on her health budget. She could do one of two things. She had a look at the Audit Act. The Audit Act enables her to shift money from one place to another without telling anybody about it and you get to find out about it down the track. The Audit Act enables her to do another thing, which is what she did. She said, "Let us get another Bill into the place. Let us admit that we have overspent the health budget, loudly and clearly, in the consultative way that this Government operates; let the Assembly realise what we have done; and get the Assembly's approval to change from one thing to another, to get some more money out of the Assembly. The Assembly can either accept or reject that, but they cannot accuse this Government of not being open in the process". What is wrong with that, Mr Speaker? Nothing is wrong with that. This Assembly quite rightly said, "Okay, let us put it to an Estimates Committee", and that Estimates Committee was convened.

Did the members of the Opposition use that Estimates Committee to look at the way we could fix the health problem? Of course not. Did they try to use it as a political football? Of course they did. Is it surprising that they should do that? Of course not. But they now come into this place in a hypocritical way and say, "Oh, listen, this Government is doing this as a political stunt". For heaven's sake! What nonsense! What absolute nonsense! How can the most accountable government in the history of self-government be having a political stunt in terms of this Bill?

We are not masochists, for heaven's sake. We do not put ourselves through this sort of nonsense because we like to do it; we put ourselves through it because we have promised to be accountable. The only way to try to fix the health problem is to come out and say, loudly and clearly, "Hey, listen, there is problem; there is a problem that we need to fix". If it takes all the Assembly members to try to fix the problem, well, so be it. If the majority of Assembly members believe that this is a political stunt, let them vote down Appropriation Bill (No. 2). The Government will still fix the health problem anyway. At least we have had the guts, Mr Speaker, to come clean and say, first of all, that there is a problem, and, secondly, that we have mechanisms in place that will fix it.

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